


first meeting

by chidorinnn



Category: Fire Emblem Series, Fire Emblem: Kakusei | Fire Emblem: Awakening
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-05
Updated: 2015-07-05
Packaged: 2018-04-07 17:47:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 961
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4272366
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chidorinnn/pseuds/chidorinnn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ylisse’s chief tactician, when Libra had first met her in the midst of battle, was a proud, valiant woman that exuded a sense of authority despite her short stature and delicate features. The woman before him now looks smaller, somehow – more subdued and fragile than the woman he'd met on the battlefield.</p>
            </blockquote>





	first meeting

Ylisse’s chief tactician, when Libra had first met her in the midst of battle, was a proud, valiant woman that exuded a sense of authority despite her short stature and delicate features. The woman before him now bears the same silver-white hair, tumbling loosely over her shoulders and held back by two purple ribbons matching the insignia on her cloak and on the back of her hand, and the same dark, calculating eyes – but something is different now. She looks smaller, somehow – more subdued and fragile than the woman he’d met on the battlefield.

And who wouldn’t be, after such a loss? Gods know that Princess Lissa still can’t go for even a few minutes without shedding tears, and if Lord Virion’s accounts are to be believed, then Prince Chrom’s murderous rage directly after the battle was something else entirely.

The tactician’s fingers, thin and delicate, coil around one of the wooden carvings of her game board of sorts. She moves it to the center of what looks like a circle of archers, and then her brow knots together as her hand flies to another piece six spaces away – one painted gold. She frowns as she flicks the piece with her fingers, and the piece falls flat. She mutters a Plegian curse under her breath and sets the piece back upright before rearranging more pieces on the board.

Libra clears his throat, and the tactician jerks her head upward in surprise. “Robin, is it?” he said, his voice deceptively calm. “I was told to introduce myself to you.”

“Ah…” she stammers for a moment before pushing the entire board, pieces and all, to the side. “You’re Libra, correct?” She rummages through a particularly large and disorganized stack of papers and maps, only stopping at an unusually long one. “Sorry, I haven’t added you and Tharja to the roster yet.” She reaches for a quill without looking up from the paper and begins writing. “And you’re a war monk?”

“That’s correct,” Libra says with a gentle smile. He won’t tell her how pleased he is that she didn’t mistake him for a woman.

“Perfect,” she says. She looks up at him then, her eyes narrowing as they drift from his face, to his shoulders, to his arms, to his feet.

Libra looks down, suddenly feeling self-conscious. “Is something the matter?”

She starts writing again, her quill scratching against the paper. “Just wanted to get an idea of how you’d fit into this army.” She scribbles his name down on a small slip of paper and places it on a block of wood – probably what she uses for those wooden carvings of hers.

“Can you tell me where this convoy is?” Libra asks politely.

“I can take you there myself,” she replies. She stands, straightening her cloak and pushing her hair back. In her haste, she accidentally knocks over the ink bottle. The same Plegian curse as before escapes her, more high-pitched with her voice cracking at the end. 

Libra rushes to her side, pulling as many papers as he can out of the way as she hurriedly mops up the spilled ink with a handkerchief. “S-Sorry about that,” she says, her Ylissean accent clicking back into place.

(Come to think of it, she _does_ look Plegian, and she wears the robes of a Grimleal high priestess…)

She finishes quickly enough, and she sinks back into her chair with a weary sigh. She looks so _tired_ then, like something heavy is pressing down on her shoulders, and when she takes the papers from Libra, she almost drops them because her grip is so weak. She flips through them, only stopping when she reaches a map with so much writing and so many marks upon it that it’s almost unrecognizable. Her brow knots together as she just stares at it, scanning every inch of it like she’d scanned Libra before.

“Can I ask what that is?” Libra asks.

Her focus broken, Robin jerks her head upward to look at him. “S-Sorry,” she stammers. “Just battle plans.”

Libra smiles serenely at her, and she straightens the papers in her arms as well as she can before setting them back down on the table. “I’m sorry you had to join us during such dire circumstances,” she whispers. “I completely understand if you wish to return to the monastery after…”

_After such an awful battle_ , is what she likely means to say.

“Actually,” Libra says, clearing his throat, “I wish to stay more than ever.”

She sighs quietly and nods. “I’m sorry. Thank you.” She reaches for the map she’d inspected before and hands it to him, her expression guarded. “This is what I was looking at. It’s… well…”

A cluster of dots indicating Risen archers are circled, and the answer becomes clear. “I’m so sorry,” Libra says automatically. “I shouldn’t have pried.”

“No,” she says, shaking her head. “I’m the one who should be apologizing. I failed us all…”

Libra sets the map back down and looks solemnly to her. She doesn’t meet his gaze, choosing instead to rub the mark on the back of her right hand absentmindedly. “No one could have predicted the outcome of that battle, Lady Robin.”

She gives him a weary, broken smile. “But I still had to.”

Her expression conveys the same sort of disappointment and hopelessness he himself has fallen victim to at times of failure at the monastery, and Libra cannot in good conscience leave her to the mercy of her own mind. “I believe the Khans mentioned dinner,” he says as he extends his hand. “I would be honored if you joined me.”

The tactician stares at his outstretched hand for a long moment before taking it, the Grimleal insignia gleaming on the back of her hand.


End file.
